


Animals

by busaikko



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Animagus, Bestiality, Crack, M/M, Post-War, Werewolf, snake - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-01
Updated: 2007-02-01
Packaged: 2017-10-07 09:15:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/busaikko/pseuds/busaikko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus finds himself in charge of Severus, who won't revert from Animagus form following another of Voldemort's spectacularly bad ideas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Animals

**Author's Note:**

> Betas: aunty_marion, islandsmoke, and schemingreader
> 
> For the February 2007 Pervy Werewolf Fuq

In the war's dying throes, it was discovered that Peter Pettigrew had taught the Animagus transformation to Voldemort's inner circle. Voldemort wanted loyal warriors who inspired fear.

Surely, Remus mused, Voldemort must have been disappointed when Bellatrix Lestrange turned into a goat. And not some menacing black she-devil goat, but the sort of cross-eyed, fawn-coloured, even-toed ungulate that might be found on a model dairy. Remus scratched her between the eyes and fed her another carrot.

Laughter, it was said, had great power. The theory had never been formally tested in battle until now. Harry and his friends, with the Order of the Phoenix, had fought through inferi and Dementors to the heart of Voldemort's lair of evil. There they found the arch-villain himself, protected by a goat, two chickens, a wildebeest, an armadillo, three snakes, and a rat.

Under the thunder of laughter, the last Horcrux dissolved. His soul too small to fill a thimble, Voldemort - the boggart-like form of the Wizarding World's collective fear - had shrivelled up in shame to the point where he winked out of existence.

The rat had made a run for the wainscoting; McGonagall's instincts took over, and the world was less one rat in one powerful snap of her jaws. She dropped it at Harry's feet and washed her back paws modestly.

Tonks put her hands on her hips and glowered at the menagerie. She had been incandescent with rage ever since Remus (assisted by powerful emetics and righteous fury) had freed her from the grip of Amortentia No. 9; the animals froze before her as if pinned by headlamps.

"Snap out of it," she ordered. "Azkaban's lovely in summer, and their rehabilitation program is smashing. Uncle Lucius adores the badminton therapy."

The armadillo shivered, stretched, and unfolded into Narcissa Malfoy, followed a moment later by a chicken, which moulted into her son.

Tonks wheedled and threatened, and the other chicken and the wildebeest found her ability to play both good _and_ bad Auror frightening enough that within half an hour they reverted to human and were taken away in chains.

Only the three snakes and the goat remained.

"Prison will be easier on you than I will," Tonks hissed in the goat's ear. "Dose _me_ with love potion, will you?"

"Maaa," Bellatrix said, and ate the cuff of Tonk's robe.

Meanwhile, Harry confirmed that one of the snakes had taken a very wrong turn on the way to Brazil and one had been Voldemort's loyal confidante and offered Harry 15% of the earnings on its life story (Harry held out for 40%). The third snake said nothing.

"But I'd recognise those eyes anywhere," Harry said. "If that isn't Snape, I'll eat the Sorting Hat."

Bellatrix went home with Tonks; Harry (having compromised on 28%), Ron, and Hermione draped themselves in coils and took the two real snakes; and the remaining members of the Order looked at each other and at the serpent slithering defensively in the bucket Tonks had transfigured out of her left trainer.

"We could draw lots," Shacklebolt said finally. "Or… arm wrestle."

Minerva snorted. "Best two out of three," she said, flexing her wand arm.

"I'll take him," Remus heard himself say. "He won't be any trouble."

* * *

"Well, I'm glad you're not a spider," Remus said. "Or venomous. But what exactly _are_ you?" He stirred his tea absently with his quill and turned a page in the _Outdoorsman's Tome of Reptiles_. "Fascinating creatures, snakes. Not sure I'd care to be one, though. Bikkie?" He held a digestive temptingly in front of Snape's blunt black nose. Snape flicked his tongue desultorily and coiled about in the basket.

Remus had, first thing, Flooed his mother for advice. She still worked for the funfair: her current act was as Madame Lupine - The Vanishing Lady!, but she had spent a few years as a serpent swallower back when it was still marginally legal. She had jogged through the fireplace with a Moses basket (_"We brought you home from the hospital in this,"_ she'd said, banging off dust before thrusting the basket into Remus' arms) and a fluffy pink blanket. She'd also recommended keeping a hot-water bottle under the blanket.

"Do remember, he's cold-blooded," she'd said, standing on tip-toe to peck Remus on the cheek before dashing back into the fireplace.

Remus ran a finger down the page on the feeding and care of snakes.

"You're about five feet long… I think you're a kingsnake," Remus said, and grinned in amusement as Snape slithered as if in embarrassment. "The shorter you get, the more royal you are." Snape glared. "You'll get the last laugh, anyway. I'm going to have to catch toads in the garden for you. At least there are enough of those out behind the woodshed."

Remus hadn't ever felt lonely in his little house. It was his sanctuary, and he'd spent so little time there over the past few years that his longing to go home had sometimes been nearly painful. But he found he didn't mind Snape's intrusion on his joyous reunion. He topped up the dust-banishing charms, put fresh linens on the bed, applied generous handfuls of FadeAway to his curtains and threadbare settee, and finally draped Snape about his neck as he levitated the carpets outside to beat themselves as he applied a good coat of Mrs Merrilee's Miracle Floor Polish and Elbow Grease to the floorboards. By the time he was done, his socks were as filthy as his rooms were clean, and he had inadvertently polished Snape to a lovely deep shine.

Snape didn't even seem to mind Remus' stream of chatter, at least judging by his tail, which curled in the breast pocket of his button-down shirt. It was pleasant to have someone to talk to, Remus thought, fetching the basket from the kitchen and warming the hot-water bottle. He brought it into the bedroom and set it on the floor by the bed.

"Good night, then, Snape," Remus said politely, and sealed the room with a few good strong charms: it wouldn't do for Snape to escape whilst he slept. He lowered Snape into the basket carefully so as not to startle. Snape glared at him as he stripped for bed. "Do snakes dream?" Remus asked, pulling the sheet up under his chin, flicking his wand to shut the curtains, and then tucking his wand under his pillow. "If so - pleasant ones."

He woke in the dark with a feeling of something being wrong. Voldemort - dead, he recalled. Gas - turned off. Didn't iron today. Death Eaters - ah! Memory jogged, he hung his head over the edge of the bed and peered into the basket. Snape was coiled up tightly, his tail vibrating, or perhaps shivering. The kingsnake, Remus recalled, was not terrifically fond of cold climates.

"All right, then, Snape?" he asked, but the coil of misery in the basket didn't respond. Remus sighed, dug out his wand, and levitated Snape into his bed. The serpent snuggled - if, he supposed, a serpent _can_ be said to snuggle - up against his warmth, and Remus dozed off in fond reminiscence of his childhood bedmates, Messrs Bear and Lump.

Over the next few days he discovered that Snape was averse to being called Mr Snake - thank goodness he was not venomous - but open to any opportunity for close contact. Remus felt silly wandering down to post letters with Snape curled round his neck like a muffler, and there really was nothing to put one off one's tea more than feeling a frog kicking its death throes out in the stomach beneath one's hand. But a pet was good companionship for a forty-something bachelor, he told Minerva when she came to check up on them. Her eyebrows had expressed a wide range of incredulous statements before her mouth unpursed enough to issue a simple, "Is that so."

"Why aren't you a mammal?" Remus said, running his hand idly over the rings of black and white that made Snape, for perhaps once in his life, rather pretty. "You could have tried for cute and fluffy, at least." He was teasing: he knew that it was impossible to choose an Animagus form, that the form chose the person. His mouth curled up as he thought of the other Death Eaters. He had got a very nice block of magically-aged feta from Tonks just the other day as an early anti-Valentine. Snape had turned it down, but the flicker of his tongue had seemed to suggest laughter. "Are you happier this way?"

Remus asked himself the same question and choked on his tea when he realised his answer.

The only uncomfortable part of taking care of Snape was the sleeping arrangement. Remus supposed it would be churlish and possibly dangerous to put Snape out of his bed. Even when he put three hot-water bottles in the basket along with Snape's squeaky rubber toad, Snape would not settle down until he was safely constricting about Remus' warmth.

"I'm only human," he'd mumbled in embarrassment the first time his body had reacted to the caress of coils and soft underbelly. Snape hadn't seemed bothered at all, but Remus still stumbled out to the loo to take care of his difficulty.

The problem was that it kept happening, and Remus kept dreaming in increasingly vivid detail: sometimes about snakes, sometimes about Snape, and always waking up painfully hard. The floors were icy, the toilet was in the back garden, and Snape kept laughing at him. Or at least expressing bemusement with that damnable forked tongue of his that featured so prominently in Remus' dreams.

Remus had been enjoying the attentions of that tongue, whisper-soft like a tickle against the soft skin of his thighs, when his eyes snapped open and he realised that it was _not_ a dream. There were heavy coils of Snape draped over his stomach and a tail under his chin, but Snape's head was… down _there_. Snape moved, and Remus felt the smoothness of him ripple against his cock, which jumped. Remus raised his head in alarm at the same time as Snape's head came up. Whether snakes were capable of Legilimency, Remus did not know, but he thought _not edible_ as hard as he could at Snape.

… although he had had several fascinating dreams in which the snake's jaws had unhinged as its mouth slid down his cock, throat muscles working as it tried impossibly to swallow him like prey….

Remus' throat had gone dry; while he attempted to regain the power of speech, Snape returned to his original position. Except this time, the play of tongue over his balls was more like serpentine laughter.

Remus' head fell back against his pillow. He supposed that it said something about his high level of sexual frustration that he was actually considering –

"Fancy watching a middle-aged lycanthrope wank, do you?" he asked, and frowned because it was difficult to find the good oil in his cluttered bedside drawer one-handed, and because he wasn't sure that Snape understood his words as more than vibrations felt through skin and bone. Ethically, he supposed, this was very dodgy; but Snape had licked him first. "I'm not going to put on a show for you."

The oil was expensive and smelt rather spicy and Eastern; Snape raised his head and gave Remus a look, and then slithered around. He settled half his length between Remus' thighs, forcing them apart, and half across the softness of Remus' stomach, just under his ribs. Remus trailed an oiled finger along Snape's spine and grinned as this elicited a startled hiss. "I know you have sex organs in there somewhere," Remus murmured, sliding his finger around to Snape's underbelly. "Don't think I'm going looking for them. But seeing as you started this, you might as well enjoy it."

It was awkward stroking the snake and his cock at the same time. Remus recalled the play-yard trick of patting one's head whilst rubbing one's stomach: he'd never been good at that, either. Snape seemed to recognise the difficulty - or perhaps he was just frustrated - but he began to slither himself through the grasp of Remus' hand. That his movements brushed against Remus' cock more often than not, or that his tail slipped down past Remus' balls, or that he discovered that the lightest application of his tongue to Remus' nipples made Remus half fold up as if caught by a stinging hex - all of these things Remus had a hard time thinking of as accidental. But he was through with thinking, he decided, as the tongue mapped his cock again; through with anything but the need for pleasure….

_Oh gods, it's a snake - it's Snape - oh _fuck_ does it feel good - _

… and Remus was coming hard, head snapping back as his back arched up. He felt Snape start to slide off and grabbed for coils before the tide of pleasure had even receded.

"We _must_ do that again," he heard himself say and thought he sounded demented, as if he'd just had a successful garden party. He shifted his weighted-down limbs until he had a good teddy-bear hold on Snape, and then he was asleep.

The good thing, Remus thought over tea the next morning, was that snakes made excellent morning-after partners. They made no demands for caresses and kisses when all one really wanted was a hot shower and clean teeth; they didn't make horrible burnt fry-ups as declarations of their love (or at least of their heartfelt desire to experience orgasm once again before work). Snakes did not steal one's clothes or try and have meaningful discussions of relationships and compatible star-signs before the first cup of tea.

Remus looked sideways at the snake and tried to avoid the little voice in his head that suggested that Severus Snape would do none of those things, either.

The bad thing… things… well, yes. He wasn't sure whether he was more disturbed that he'd - face facts - wanked with a reptile, or that the reptile was Snape.

He'd got out the file on Snape that Shacklebolt had Floo'd through - with the enemy gone, apparently the Ministry was filling the void with paperwork. It had all seemed irrelevant - the man was a murderer and a Death Eater - and Remus had been perfectly happy to use the file to prop up the short leg of his coffee table. But now he felt rather guilty.

"I'm reading your file," he said as Snape slithered past. "There are so many questions with no answers." He sighed. "I know you could stay in that form for years - Pettigrew and Sirius did." Snape's head came up and he gave Remus what could only be considered a glare. Remus stared back. "I have to believe that you're in there - what are you thinking?" Snape disappeared into the front room; after a moment, there came the high-pitched squeal of the rubber toad being constricted. Remus rubbed his forehead hard with the heel of his hand. He was getting a little too attached to a murdering Death Eater.

Later, he discovered that, unlike human partners, snakes were harder to put off short of dropping them out of bed entirely. Their sense of hearing wasn't fine enough to understand most insults, he supposed. "This is creepy and weird," he told Snape finally, trying not to pant with the desperation of a hormone-maddened teenager. "_You're_ creepy. You do know that, don't you oh sacred wand of Merlin do that again, oh, _fuck_." He shoved weakly at Snape's coils, trying to discourage him from licking him clean - he'd no idea whether cum was healthy for a snake or not. "We're not doing this again," he told Snape, but thought his position might be undermined by the compromising position he found himself in, as Snape curled up around his cock for the night.

Remus' resistance eroded slowly but steadily. There had been a few days when he'd fallen into a sulk after his mother had lounged on the settee with Snape after Sunday dinner and shown him Remus' baby pictures, as if Snape were - were some kind of _suitor_.

Shacklebolt had Floo'd over before the full moon to check on Snape's progress, mentioning in passing that it had been over a month already and that bets were being placed on who'd last longer in Animagus form, Snape or Bellatrix. _A month!_ Remus thought with horror, nearly dropping the tea service. He'd beaten his own record for relationship length.

And with a snake. Who was Snape.

Or with Snape. Who happened to be a snake.

Shacklebolt had asked whether Remus were feeling all right, and he'd been able to say honestly that he felt a little ill. It had given him a little pleasure to cough delicately over the sandwiches, and Shacklebolt left with haste on a similar pretence, of having forgotten some paperwork he had to hand in.

"I really think I'm unhinged," Remus sighed, pulling his knees up nearly to his chin and sipping at a drink that was more cheap whisky than tea. Snape was stalking a toad, but he didn't seem interested in eating this week. The _Tome of Reptiles_ suggested that perhaps he was going to shed. Even Snape's eyes had gone dull. "I'm getting too damned used to this. It's not normal, not even for Dark creatures."

The sand timer on the table ran down and chimed the first verse of _Magic in Your Eyes_. Remus set his cup down carefully, unfolded, and crossed to the cooker, where his saucepan of ersatz Wolfsbane burped gently to itself. He stirred it, never very clear on which way widdershins was. He had started experimenting with lycanthrope-taming potions while staying with Greyback's pack. While his formula was less a delicate instrument than something blunt and brutal, it had drugged the werewolves into docility. If it had made all of them sick for days afterwards, well, in wartime that had been an advantage.

"Does it itch horribly?" Remus asked as Snape slithered past his ankles. "Do save me the skin - it's supposed to bring good luck, snakeskin."

The mixture in the pot produced a cloud of acrid green smoke. Remus poured it into a chilled mug, toasted Snape, and drank it down in one gulp.

"Now," he said, though he doubted that there was any sense in taking a severe tone with a reptile. "You're to stay in your nice warm basket, and none of last month's theatrics." Remus had made it up out of the cellar shortly before noon only to find Snape stuck midway up the staircase and half-frozen. Remus had had to call his mother, who had Floo'd in with a herpetologist friend of hers. "I'll leave the wireless on."

He fiddled with it now, finally tuning Brighton in. They played pops all morning, but the afternoon game shows were good fun, and - yes - there was still time to catch the tail end of Melvin Prufrock's _Garden Delights_. Remus drew a wistful breath: this week Melvin was discussing lawn charms, and his own grass was a disgrace. But the moon was rising.

"_Broom Talk_'ll be on at nine," he reminded Snape, and checked the warming charms on the hot-water bottles one more time, his stomach roiling as he bent over. Nothing like being overtaken by Dark magic while steeped to the gills in poison. His fingertips were going numb.

He scratched Snape's orbital ridge gently, stripped, and then locked himself in the dark of the cellar to wait out the moon.

Consciousness returned with a wave of nausea. Remus supposed he'd miscalculated the amount of aconite, or one of the other toxins. He hadn't felt this ill in ages: even emptying his stomach didn't stop the cramps, or the heaves, or the trembling cold weakness that sucked all his energy.

After a few hours, when he'd reluctantly decided that he was going to survive after all, he managed to get himself upstairs on hands and knees. The doorknob would open only to his human hand - an idea stolen from the Muggles - and he fell inwards with the door, barely catching himself on the doorframe.

"Drink this," Snape said, scowling as the _s_ came out far too much like a hiss. "Are you trying to give yourself permanent nerve damage? No, drink. You're an idiot," Snape added, using Remus' wand to clean him up and to summon a blanket. He wrapped Remus tightly, waited a moment to make sure Remus wouldn't spew, and then levitated him upstairs to bed.

"Damn," Remus said, feeling feeble and feeling certain that he _looked_ feeble, and also that he smelled strongly of wolf and cellar. "You're _you_," he said, trying not to sound peevish, and failing. "I wanted - " he sighed out, and gave it up as a loss. Snape tucked the blankets around him with severe precision.

"What?" Snape said.

"Wanted to make love to _you_," Remus mumbled, eyes falling shut and hands too heavy to raise.

When Remus woke the next morning, everything was the same. He draped the snake coiled between his thighs over his shoulders instead and made his way downstairs. After breakfast he walked down to the garden centre and bought geraniums in pots for the front step. He tidied the house up and found Snape's skin behind the settee. He draped it artistically over the mantelpiece, cutting off a bit of the tail which he folded carefully and put in his wallet. He showered and wondered if Snape had, when he'd been human. Cleanliness was one of the wonderful things about being human, Remus always thought. He had his tea, read two chapters of their latest book to Snape, sent off one long letter to Minerva, and undressed for bed.

When he turned, Snape was standing between him and the bed, his arms crossed defensively.

"You needn't look like that," Remus informed him, feeling very naked indeed, but damned if he'd copy Snape's body language. He put his hands on his hips instead. Snape wore his usual black robes, rather worse for wear and rubbed thin in places.

"What do you want?" Snape asked, looking as discomfited as Remus felt. "I'm better company as the snake."

"Probably," Remus said. "But if we don't try, we'll never know. You can't sleep in all that," he added, and crossed to the bed. Snape rustled, but didn't undress.

"Ever sleep with a murderer?" Snape asked, and Remus held out a hand. When Snape didn't take it, he took Snape's hand and tugged him gently forwards and began undressing him. _Like a virgin on his wedding night_, Remus thought. His mother would doubtless approve.

He wanted to give Snape pleasure: after all, he'd been the one having spectacular orgasms nightly whilst Snape merely slithered about. He had imagined Snape as a sophisticated lover; he had forgotten how desperately plain the man was, and how his scowling prickliness made his faults even more obvious. Snape didn't answer Remus' questions about what he liked (Remus noticed that he was trying very hard to avoid saying _s_es), so Remus improvised his seduction. The absolute trust Snape had in him was terrifying, as was the moisture that clung to the lashes of Snape's eyes as he shuddered in the aftermath of orgasm. Remus, well versed in sexual cliche, supposed that he should be asking _did I hurt you?_ But he was sure he hadn't, though Snape would surely hurt him for asking. Instead he curled up at Snape's side and pressed his forehead against the base of his skull as he stroked himself towards his own release.

Sated, warm, and comfortably draped about Snape, Remus was halfway dozing when Snape spoke:

"So - are you going to call the Aurors now?"

"What? No," Remus said, and was surprised to find that his mind had been subconsciously making plans whilst he was preoccupied with the play of light in Snape's brown eyes. "Unless you want to go to prison?" Snape shuddered, and Remus pulled him closer, petting him absently - habits were hard things to break. "I was thinking about fleeing the country, in fact. My mother would be more than willing to help. She's sure to know any number of places a boy and his well-trained snake would be welcome."

"Well-trained," Snape said flatly, and Remus grinned.

"I doubt, Snape, that there's a better-trained serpent in all the British isles." Severus glowered. "Do I offend?" he said: it was lovely, the freedom to be cheeky to Snape and not fear being hexed.

"You used to call me by name," Snape said. "It is a privilege I rarely grant, and you stole it, and I _loathed_ you for it. Then - after - then, you started calling me _Snape_. And I hate that as well."

Remus toyed with Snape's - _Severus'?_ \- hair. It was finer than his, and slipped through his fingers like silk. "I called you Severus," he murmured, "precisely because it drove you wild."

There was a pause. "It might still drive me wild," Snape admitted, slowly. Remus pushed himself up on an elbow so he could look down into Snape's - Severus' - face. He smiled, feeling wolfish.

"Let's find out, then," he said, lowering his voice to a near growl. "_Severus_."

* * *

 

Epilogue

Remus dropped to sit cross-legged on his hearth and gave Shacklebolt an inquisitive smile. Shacklebolt had dark circles under his eyes; Remus suspected they were not from soot.

"So - how is Snape?" Shacklebolt asked.

"Oh _gods_." Remus clapped a hand to his forehead, trying not to look overly theatrical. "Shit - I _knew_ I was forgetting something. Snape. Right."

Shacklebolt sighed. "Short ugly Death Eater? Lately a snake? Where is he?"

"I'm sorry," Remus said. "I'm afraid I ate him."

Shacklebolt's face went flat; his voice was flatter still. "You ate him."

"Mmm." Remus looked apologetic. "Something about my home-brewed Wolfsbane last month. I've been so docile recently, I hadn't even thought that - well." He shrugged and tried a sheepish expression. "Tasted like chicken, in case you were wondering."

"Chicken."

"A little tough," Remus allowed. "Look, is this a problem? Only I'm taking my mother on a trip abroad tomorrow as it's her wedding anniversary and Valentine's besides, and - do I have to do paperwork? Or… would you like a spoor sample? I can check my cellar - "

"No," Shacklebolt said with revulsion. "Paperwork. I'll owl over some forms. At the very least a Report of Untimely Death Eater Demise - I'll have to have corrections authorised, you know. No one's ever _consumed_ a Death Eater before. Send it all back before you go. In triplicate." He gave Remus a pained, suspicious glare. "I'll never be able to eat chicken again."

"The Malfoys will be glad," Remus murmured, and waved a cheery goodbye before heading into the front room to stretch out on the settee with his head in Sn - Severus' lap.

"Chicken," Severus said. "A little tough. Rich coming from you. Werewolf."

"Snake," Remus countered, and felt his mouth curve in a smile which Severus returned after a glowering pause.

"Better than chicken," Severus said. "At any rate."

The End


End file.
